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What is it like to be a bat?

(en.wikipedia.org)
180 points adityaathalye | 22 comments | 03 Sep 25 17:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.453s | source | bottom
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bondarchuk ◴[03 Sep 25 19:34 UTC] No.45119634[source]▶
>"An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something that it is like for the organism."

IMHO the phrasing here is essential to the argument and this phrasing contains a fundamental error. In valid usage we only say that two things are like one another when they are also separate things. The usage here (which is cleverly hidden in some tortured language) implies that there is a "thing" that is "like" "being the organism", yet is distinct from "being the organism". This is false - there is only "being the organism", there is no second "thing that is like being the organism" not even for the organism itself.

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1. mtlmtlmtlmtl ◴[03 Sep 25 20:00 UTC] No.45119822[source]▶
This is the conclusion I come to whenever I try to grasp the works of Nagel, Chalmers, Goff, Searle et al. They're just linguistically chasing their own tails. There's no meaningful insight below it all. All of their arguments, however complex, all rely on poorly defined terms like "understand" "subjective experience", "what it is like", "qualia", etc. And when you try to understand the arguments with the definition of these terms left open, you realise the arguments only make sense when the terms include in their definition a supposition that the argument is true. It's all just circular reasoning.
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2. mellosouls ◴[03 Sep 25 20:25 UTC] No.45120025[source]▶
All of their arguments, however complex, all rely on poorly defined terms like "understand" "subjective experience", "what it is like", "qualia", etc.

Because they are trying to discuss a difficult-to-define concept - consciousness.

The difficulty and nebulousness is intrinsic to the subject, especially when trying to discuss in scientific terms.

To dismiss their attempts so, you have to counter with a crystal, unarguable description of what consciousness actually is.

Which of course, you cannot do, as there is no such agreed description.

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3. mensetmanusman ◴[03 Sep 25 21:22 UTC] No.45120544[source]▶
It’s fun to imagine what it would be like to understand consciousness.
4. biophysboy ◴[03 Sep 25 21:43 UTC] No.45120703[source]▶
If he were capable of describing subjective experience in words with the exactitude you're asking for, then his central argument would be false. The point is that objective measures, like writing, are external, and cannot describe internal subjective experience. Its one thing to probe the atoms; its another thing to be the atoms themselves.

Basically his answer to the question "What is it like to be a bat?" is that its impossible to know.

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5. cwmoore ◴[03 Sep 25 21:59 UTC] No.45120832[source]▶
“The Feeling of What Happens” by Antonio D’Amasio, a book by a neuroscientist some years ago [0], does an excellent job of building a framework for conscious sensation from the parts, as I recall, constructing a theory of “mind maps” from various nervous system structures that impressed me with a sense that I could afterwards understand them.

[0] https://www.labyrinthbooks.com/the-feeling-of-what-happens/

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6. cwmoore ◴[03 Sep 25 22:00 UTC] No.45120842[source]▶
Tautologically, its “batty”.
7. brudgers ◴[03 Sep 25 22:50 UTC] No.45121220{3}[source]▶
As a radical materialist, the problem with ordinary materialism is that it boils down to dualism because some types matter (e.g. the human nervous system) give rise to consciousness and other types of matter (e.g. human bones) do not.

Ordinary materialism is mind-body/soul-substance subjectivity with a hat and lipstick.

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8. glenstein ◴[03 Sep 25 22:54 UTC] No.45121244[source]▶
>This is the conclusion I come to whenever I try to grasp the works of Nagel, Chalmers, Goff, Searle et al. They're just linguistically chasing their own tails.

I do mostly agree with that and I think that they collectively give analytic philosophy a bad name. The worst I can say for Nagel in this particular case though is that the whole entire argument amounts to, at best, an evocative variation of a familiar idea presented as though it's a revelatory introduction of a novel concept. But I don't think he's hiding an untruth behind equivocations, at least not in this case.

But more generally, I would say I couldn't agree more when it comes to the names you listed. Analytic philosophy ended up being almost completely irrelevant to the necessary conceptual breakthroughs that brought us LLMs, a critical missed opportunity for philosophy to be the field that germinates new branches of science, and a sign that a non-trivial portion of its leading lights are just dithering.

9. glenstein ◴[03 Sep 25 22:56 UTC] No.45121258[source]▶
I don't agree that the inherent nebulousness of the subject extends cover to the likes of Goff, Chalmers (on pansychism), or Searle and Nagel (on the hard problem). It's a both can be true situation and many practicing philosophers appreciate the nebulousness of the topic while strongly disagreeing with the collective attitudes embodied by those names.
10. glenstein ◴[03 Sep 25 22:58 UTC] No.45121270[source]▶
>If he were capable of describing subjective experience in words with the exactitude you're asking for, then his central argument would be false.

Indeed! Makes you think: maybe it's a bug rather than a feature.

11. mannykannot ◴[03 Sep 25 23:00 UTC] No.45121286[source]▶
Up to a point I agree, but when someone deploys this vague language in what are presented as strong arguments for big claims, it is they who bear the burden of disambiguating, clarifying and justifying the terms they use.
12. AIorNot ◴[03 Sep 25 23:31 UTC] No.45121533{4}[source]▶
So how does a radical materialist explain consciousness- that it is too is a fundamental material phenomena? If so are you stretching the definition of materialism?

I find myself believing in Idealism or monism to be the fundamental likelihood

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13. cwmoore ◴[03 Sep 25 23:41 UTC] No.45121616{4}[source]▶
Human bones most definitely do contribute to feeling, but not through logos. The book expands upon the idea of mind body duality to merge proprioception and general perception.

I’d bet bats would enjoy marrow too if they could.

EDIT: removed LLM irrelevancy, improved formatting

14. meroes ◴[04 Sep 25 00:51 UTC] No.45122171[source]▶
I like the more specific versions of those terms: the feeling of a toothache and the taste of mint. There's no need to grasp anything, they're feelings. There's no feeling when a metal bar is bent by a press.

Why they focus on feelings is a different issue.

15. brudgers ◴[04 Sep 25 02:10 UTC] No.45122715{5}[source]▶
It doesn’t explain it.

Consciousness is a characteristic of material/matter/substance/etc.

There are not two types of stuff.

It is epistemologically rigorous. And simple.

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16. AIorNot ◴[04 Sep 25 03:33 UTC] No.45123242{6}[source]▶
well the hard problem of consciousness gets in the way of that

- I assume you as a materialist you mean our brain carries consciousness as a field of experience arising out of neural activity (ie neurons firing, some kind of infromation processing leading to models of reality simulated in our mind leading to ourselves feeling aware) ie that we our awareness is the 'software' running inside the wetware.

That's all well and good except that none of that explains the 'feeling of it' there is nothing in that 3rd person material activity that correlates with first person feeling. The two things, (reductionist physical processes cannot substitute for the feeling you and I have as we experience)

This hard problem is difficult to surmount physically -either you say its an illusion but how can the primary thing we are, we expereince as the self be an illusion? or you say that somewhere in fields, atoms, molecules, cells, in 'stuff; is the redness of red or the taste of chocolate..

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17. markhahn ◴[04 Sep 25 05:25 UTC] No.45123869{7}[source]▶
whenever I see the word 'reductionist', I wonder why it's being used to disparage.

a materialist isn't saying that only material exists: no materialist denies that interesting stuff (behaviors, properties) emerges from material. in fact, "material" is a bit dated, since "stuff-type material" is an emergent property of quantum fields.

why is experience not just the behavior of a neural computer which has certain capabilities (such as remembering its history/identity, some amount of introspection, and of course embodiment and perception)? non-computer-programming philosophers may think there's something hard there, but they only way they can express it boils down to "I think my experience is special".

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18. markhahn ◴[04 Sep 25 05:26 UTC] No.45123874[source]▶
Worship of subjectivity is a tell for Mysterianism.
19. goatlover ◴[04 Sep 25 05:26 UTC] No.45123878[source]▶
Don't agree with this kind of linguistic dismissal. It doesn't change the fact that we have sensations of color, sound, etc. and there are animals that can see colors, hear sounds and detect phenomena we don't. It's also quite possible they experience the same frequencies we see or hear differently, due to their biological differences. This was noted by ancient skeptics when discussing the relativity of perception.

That is what is being discussed using the "what it's like" language.

20. AIorNot ◴[04 Sep 25 06:20 UTC] No.45124159{8}[source]▶
Because consciousness itself cannot be explained except through experience ie consciousness (ie first person experience) - not through material phenomena

It’s like explaining music vs hearing music

We can explain music intellectually and physically and mathematically

But hearing it in our awareness is a categorically different activity and it’s experience that has no direct correlation to the physical correlates of its being

The common thought experiment is the color blind researcher experiencing color for the first time(Mary the Colour Scientist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument)

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21. GoblinSlayer ◴[04 Sep 25 09:00 UTC] No.45125156{4}[source]▶
Nervous system and bones work differently, because they have different structure, that's materialism alright.
22. GoblinSlayer ◴[04 Sep 25 09:04 UTC] No.45125179{9}[source]▶
Experience doesn't look necessary: we consider tesseract explained even though we can't experience it.